In the U.S. there are 23 recognized medical specialty boards. One of these is preventive medicine. Within preventive medicine there are three areas: 1. Aerospace Medicine, 2. Occupational Medicine, and 3. Public Health/General Preventive Medicine. The preventive medicine specialties have a common core of required training including biostatistics, epidemiology, health services administration and environmental health. These, plus associated topics are covered during year one of training. Year two of training involves clinical rotations specifically tailored to the eye, ear, heart, lungs and brain, plus flight training to the private pilot level, and a Masters Degree research project for the required thesis. During year three the physicians in aerospace medicine practice full-time aerospace medicine in a NASA or other government laboratory or a private facility. To date, more than 40 physicians have received aerospace medicine training through the Wright State University School of Medicine program. Among these are physicians from Japan, Australia, Taiwan, Canada and Mexico. In addition to the civilian program at Wright State University, there are programs conducted by the U. S. Air Force and Navy. The Wright State program has been privileged to have officers from the U. S. Army, Navy and Air Force. A substantial supporter of the Wright State program is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and a strong space component is contained in the program.

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In the United Kingdom, training in aerospace medicine is provided by a range of postgraduate courses at the Royal Air Force Institute of Aviation Medicine. 1) An Introductory Medical Officers' (IMO) course lasts for two weeks and is attended by all RAF doctors within the first few months of their entry to the Service. Its objective is to teach the elements of aviation physiology and medicine that they will need in the care of aircrew at a flying station. Four courses are held each year. 2) A General Aviation Medicine (GAM) course is available to civilian doctors who wish to gain recognition as Authorised Medical Examiners of commercial aircrew, or who merely have an interest in the subject. It runs concurrently with the IMO course, and much of the material is common to both. Greater emphasis is, however, given to clinical teaching and to civil aviation. The GAM course also occupies two weeks of teaching. 3) A course leading to the Diploma in Aviation Medicine is held once each year, and lasts for six months. It is open to all who have at least one year of previous experience, and has been attended by 244 military and civilian doctors from 25 countries. The D Av Med course covers every aspect of aerospace medicine at an advanced level, and its standard is at least as high as that of a M Sc degree. The Diploma is a recognised academic qualification awarded by the Royal College of Physicians. 4) Royal Air Force medical officers receive an extra three weeks of training immediately following the D Av Med course, to educate them in procedures and policies specific to the RAF. This Advanced Course is essentially practical, and those who complete it are designated as Flight Medical Officers. They receive refresher training given at regular intervals thereafter. 5) Aircrew are taught the basic principles of aviation medicine when they attend the RAF Aviation Medicine Training Centre for training in the use of their personal protective equipment assemblies. These courses are specific to the type of aircraft to be flown, and a pilot will undergo at least four during his flying career. 6) Short courses of a specialised nature are also offered to clinical consultants, medical students, senior Air Force officers, nurses and others. It is now recognised in the United Kingdom that aviation medicine is a component of occupational medicine, and the Royal College of Physicians accepts the D Av Med as evidence of formal education in that branch of medicine. The recent great expansion of occupational medicine in Britain has thus significantly increased the requirement for the aeromedical training of civilian and military doctors.

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Pre- and postovulatory ovarian follicles of the amago salmon were investigated with special consideration given to the steroid production site. In the preovulatory specimens, the special thecal cells contained abundant mitochondria and smooth endoplasmic reticulum, as in the case of other steroid-producing cells, while the granulosa cells developed rough endoplasmic reticulum like protein-secreting cells. Remarkably ultrastructural changes occurred in the granulosa and the special thecal cells during the oocyte maturation stage; dilation of rough endoplasmic reticulum in the former cell and further development of smooth endoplasmic reticulum in the latter one. Histochemical reactions of Δ⁵-3 β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (3 β-HSD) activity were only positive in the special thecal cells of the postovulatory follicles. These results strongly suggest that the special thecal cells are the major sites of estrogen precursor synthesis in the amago salmon ovary.

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JTC-11 cells derived from an Ehrlich ascites tumor do not proliferate and do not synthesize DNA in a medium which contains citrulline but not arginine. Mouse L and HeLa cells grew well in citrulline medium. Since JTC-11 cells have been transplanted intraperitoneally in vivo and cultured in vitro for a long period, these cells may spontaneously lose the ability to synthesize arginine from citrulline.

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A gas chromatographic method was used for determining ethylene glycol in urine. The analytical procedure is based on an azeotropic distillation and on esterification with n-butyl boronic acid. The linear calibration curve was obtained up to 500 μg/ml of ethylene glycol. The detection limit was estimated to be 10 μg/ml and relative standard deviation was 3.5% for 100 μg/ml of ethylene glycol. This method was applied to determine the urinary excretion of ethylene glycol in rats exposed to ethylene oxide at various concentrations (from 50 to 500 ppm). The excretion amounts of ethylene glycol were observed to be dependent on the concentration of ethylene oxide exposed.

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Today, systems approaches can be found almost everywhere, including the field of health care. Although relatively new, the systems approach to health care has produced numerous useful results. The Third International Conference on System Science in Health Care was held in Munich, Federal Republic of Germany, in July, 1984. The author attended this conference, and in this paper he reviews the research activities in this field from a system scientist's viewpoint. The review shows that although the current status of this research field covers a wide range of health care problems, several subjects need further research: (1) health indicator refinement, (2) public decision-making with multiobjective and multiple decision-maker analyses, (3) development of theory and practice of the general system and (4) health care problems in developing countries.

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Human divers are now able to engage in a multi-day dive to a considerable depth using the mixed gas saturation diving technique, however their daily activities are somewhat limited in the depth. One of the major problems that has not been generally appreciated is the potential for body fluid disturbances at high pressure due to the development of a sustained diuresis. In addition, a marked nocturia has been observed in recent saturation dives at 26-31 atmospheres absolute (ATA), which disturbs divers' sleep during the night. In this review, we will briefly discuss the basic characteristics and mechanisms of these disturbances of renal functions observed during hyperbaric exposure.

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The unusual echo findings of the left ventricular thrombus by M-mode echocardiogram is reported. The patient was a 41-year-old man with hypokinesis of the inferior and inferolateral wall due to acute myocardial infarction. The findings of M-mode echocardiogram revealed dense thick linear echoes just below the anterior wall of the apex, which had a higher density than the myocardium and looked "band like". These abnormal echoes obtained by M-mode echocardiogram were also detected through examinations by 2-dimensional echocardiogram, computed tomogram and left ventriculogram, and were assumed to arise from the index finger-sized thrombus in the left ventricle at the time of surgical procedure. Although this abnormal echo, revealed to have a "band like" feature by M-mode echocardiogam, is usually seen in the left ventricular myxoma, we assume that this "band like" echo by M-mode echocardiogram arose from the left ventricular thrombus under conditions such as myocardial infarction, ventricular aneurysm, dilated cardiomyopathy and long-term congestive heart failure.

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A 54-year-old man had a leiomyosarcoma of the jejunum, 8 X 6 X 5 cm in size resected, on December 17, 1982 and died of liver metastases with hemorrhagic ascites (4,000 ml) on July 5, 1984. The malignant potential of a smooth muscle tumor based on the mitotic index of tumor cells has been stressed for many years. However, our biologically malignant autopsy case showed not only an exceptionally low mitotic index in tumor cells of the surgical specimen but also in those of the autopsy specimen. In this report, the fact that the degree of mitotic figures sometimes fail to indicate biological behavior is discussed.

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The substrate labeled fluorescent immunoassay technique (SLFIA method) was examined in terms of clinical utility for the determination of blood levels of valproic acid (VPA) by comparing it to the enzyme-multiplied immunoassay technique (EMIT method). Both accuracy and precision were very high, and the correlation between the two was excellent (r= 0.985). Practically, the presence of hemoglobin in the sample had little influence on the accuracy. Results show that the SLFIA method is a useful means for the determination of blood concentration of VPA in epileptic patients.

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